Right. I haven’t written anything for a long time. I may be a bit rusty and I’ve been out of touch so don’t expect any juicy art world gossip or controversial statements. I’m not sure why I’m even doing this. Robert Amos gets paid to be a target. But why me? Who am I to write about art in Victoria? Why am I doing it? Some kind of therapeutic exercise probably. Also I wanted to talk to Deborah about something and I owe Efren a favour. That’s the way things work in the art world kids. You have to suck up to people with power and influence. Not that we do that kind of thing in Victoria. Well some might but I certainly never would….never mind…I was 5 chapters into Keith Richards biography, Keith was just starting to get it on with Anita Pallenberg in the back of his Bentley and I needed a break. So out I went.
So how to write about Mike Andrew McLean’s show at Deluge? First, having decided to write about it, I had to put myself in the position of having to take a position. This is a small town and I don't want to upset anybody. Don’t be silly, said Debby, write what you want. Good advice. But I find it easier to write about painting than anything else. Photography always strikes me as a sort of clean clinical process. I suppose there’s a lot of walking around involved but it ultimately seems to come down to choice of subject matter and technical proficiency. The camera is a tool. The photographer is the one who decides what to photograph and precisely when to click the shutter. The camera captures a moment, perhaps a mood, meaning can be subjective or it can be left to the viewer to supply. I assume the real creative work happens in the dark room. To be honest I actually haven’t been grabbed by any new photographic developments since that collage stuff that David Hockney did with polaroids. And that was quite a while ago. Seemed like a bit of a breakthrough at the time. Recently I see he’s found a way to paint flowers with an iPad….but I digress. Poor Mike must be pacing up and down waiting for me to pass judgment on his work. Hang in there Mike. We’ll get there. The show is called ‘Whites’. Here is part of the artist’s statement…..
“Etymologically, photography means writing or drawing with light, and as such it is a mad-scientific endeavour. Light as a physical phenomenon both reveals our surroundings and obscures our sight, and traditional photographic processes reflect this polarisation. In allowing for correct exposure, light immediately darkens film. Images result from a correlated duel with this immaterial ingredient: measured parts avoidance, allowance and alteration.”
He is exploring how things become white when photographed. A very successful exploration I would say. It made me think about exactly what white is, the effect of light on objects and the way this is transformed by the photographic process. There’s a man/nature dialogue going on with some of the photographs A gentle argument but with no clear winner. The tree by Doug Christie’s old office is spectacular…the blank noticeboard surreal, the antique gas pump stands rusting like a leftover from Star Wars. Some of the smaller photographs looked like filler, but I liked Mike’s work. He has a good eye and a good sense of composition. Some subjects came across better than others I thought but he clearly knows how to use the dark room to advantage. I’m a painter. That’s my excuse. Probably another photographer could come up with something more comprehensive. Everybody should go to Deluge Gallery and see the show. Then everybody should go home and write about it. Preferably with a bottle of Mountgay rum for company.
My second assignment was at Open Space where there is plenty to see. The Show is called ‘Like Some Pool Of Fire’ and it’s all about colour. It includes some well-known artists from across Canada “whose practices are consistently engaged with how colour provides a framework for critical discourse in contemporary art”. Or as Gerry Gauthier explained ‘negotiations that inform the structures of the prism as a fundamental model’. Fair enough, I can decipher art jargon, but I did find myself wondering about the title… ‘Like Some Pool Of Fire’. Why, I wondered, use the currently overused ‘like’ in the title. Wouldn’t ‘Some Pool Of Fire’ work just as well? Or even ‘Pool Of Fire’? It’s like a small matter in the scheme of things but it like niggled me. I’m like so fed up with hearing ‘like’ every second word. And it’s not just like teenagers doing it. It’s like everybody. Can’t we like come up with a new word? Will it like ever stop? So I asked a rather nervous Gerry Gauthier about it and darned if it isn’t a quote from an essay by Walter Benjamin! So that put me in my place.
The theme of the show is colour. My first thought was that colour by itself is a pretty flimsy pretext for a group show. But give it time and it does have a certain cohesion. The pieces didn’t have labels so it wasn’t clear who did what. This may have been intentional. Fortunately several of the artists were there to talk about their work. Michael Morris, the older statesman of the group, seemed to set the tone. His work was on the floor. Computerized folded print outs, prisms really I guess one could call them, formed some beautiful exuberant shapes that would look wonderful on a wall I thought. These pieces were the centerpiece of the show without a doubt. There was a collection of objects wrapped in silver foil by Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Makovsky (I hope) and a brown flag. Brown, explained Kristina Lee Podesva, being a colour much misunderstood. It stands for earth and chocolate, a flag for one neutral nation. And, in a small room off the main gallery, there was nudity. Black and white and coloured nude people projected on a wall. Not sure who was responsible for that. Vincent Trasov? Anyway it was all very wholesome. Healthy looking people not doing anything naughty. The show was varied and interesting and everybody seemed to enjoy the opening.
Next, actually a couple of days earlier, I stopped by the Martin Bachelor Gallery. The first thing that struck me about Kristine Campbell’s paintings is the scale. These are ambitious, life-size figures painted on wood panels using deeply etched lines. The paint has been wiped and sanded to suggest antiquity. In the background are hand written fragments (of letters?) and Sappho’s love poems. They are quite beautiful ...if it’s OK to use that word. They suggest there is still plenty of scope for figurative painting. Maybe not Michelangelo but Campbell can certainly draw. The paintings are skillfully fashioned and quite powerful but they left me curious about the artist’s intent. Are they meant to be erotic or monumental? Was I looking at a paean to love or a homage to Sappho? All of the above? Does it matter? No. The show runs until February 3rd.
So all in all it was an enjoyable excursion. I ran into a few familiar faces. There were no sliced up bovines and I didn’t have to wade through anyone’s boring old bed-sheets or trip on any piles of twigs. Yes, I thought to myself, after an uneventful drive home, being provincial isn’t so bad.
Philip Willey was born in Winchester UK 1941. I went to Grammar School in Reigate, Surrey and Hornsey College of Art in London. - more info: http://exhibit-v.blogspot.com/search/label/philip%20Willey
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